Saturday, May 5, 2012

International Bereaved Mothers' Day, 6 May 2012

To many of you, this is news. To many of you, I hope you never have to celebrate this. To a small unfortunate group, this is reality.

A swan plant provides nourishment to caterpillars of Monarch butterflies. Not all caterpillars grow like
Eric Carle's Hungry caterpillar and grow up to become butterflies. Some
of them die, and they drop to the ground. This is a sad fact of life.
At Pt Chevalier School, we have big bushes of swan plants. My students
learn about life and death. I told my students about my baby who died.
They often ask if I am sad. Today, I read someone saying, our deceased
babies will never leave our hearts. Our hearts need to grow bigger and
bigger so we can be like the swan plant, and provide more nourishment
for more caterpillars.

It was only after 17 years after I was
bereaved that in 2007, at Mt Albert Baptist Church on Mothers' Day that a
prayer was said for those who have lost their mums and also for those
mums who have lost their children. On the second sunday in May, when
everyone is celebrating Mother's day, they forget ther is a group of
women who couldn't. Because for many of them, they should have been
Mothers, but they couldn't. Even I have other surviving children, My
heart remembers Andrew.

It
is good that some bereaved mothers themselves have chosen the first
Sunday of May to celebrate this day. I dedicate this day to all my
blogger friends who are bereaved mothers, and facebooks friends, and
friends whereever you are. To the Sands mums. Others might not remember
but, we stand in sisterhood, because we belong to this special club. To
the newest member, C who is not even one week old as a member. In
Chinese, a child's birthday is called SHOU NAN RE, a day of great
suffering. This is a super duper SHOU NAN RE.

This
May 13 will be hard for you. I pray for you.

International Bereaved Mothers Day was
created by us in 2010 and it now falls on the first Sunday of every May.
This year’s day is on Sunday May 6th 2012.

This special day was created to honour
and celebrate mothers who carry some if not all of their children in
their hearts rather than their arms. In our modern day society, mothers
who are grieving the death of their babies and children are usually
forgotten. The traditional Mothers Day has proven to be an emotionally
difficult day for so many mothers around the world.

On this day each year we come together to
celebrate our connection, our babies and children and our hope for the
future. We look at their ultrasound photos, polish their urns, lay
flowers at their graves, visit special places and light candles in their
memory.

5 comments:

You have experienced the unthinkable, yet continue on to encourage others who travel that same road. I am in awe, and will remember this when I'm feeling sorry for myself because circumstance of of life has taken my only child and her family across the country where they are thriving. God bless you, and thank you for this post.

Our church for awhile considered not celebrating Mother's Day because of the childless women who would be left out, them feeling bad. But tradition was too strong, we still have a Mother's day breakfast, but ALL the women are invited, not just moms. But it would still be sad.